


Won't go home (Without you)

by Ismere



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brian is an asshole, Fluff and Angst, I don't know if this can be considered angst, Jae is Jae, M/M, Mark is only mentioned briefly, Mentions of past abuse, Nothing explicit, Recreational Drug Use, Younghee is a shunshine, but anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 13:04:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13502152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ismere/pseuds/Ismere
Summary: “The thing about roller coasters is that at first is funny, you know. Exciting. Even when we argued the adrenaline kept us working. But at some point, you get tired, dizzy, without voice from screaming so loud… And the falls doesn’t feels like falls anymore, but neither the ups. You and me needed so bad the adrenaline that realized we were only doing it because of the emotion. Our thing was empty. Suddenly, the highs were way shorter than the downs. Suddenly all we did was argue. And we started missing something that never existed between us”Or the one where Brian has amnesia and Jae is tired of falling





	Won't go home (Without you)

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeeeey
> 
> Honestly, I don't even know. Just enjoy or something
> 
> un-betad, so if something is weird is only my fault.
> 
> TW: Past abuse, is not explicit, but be safe my dudes.

First time Brian saw Jae he thought about the rain. And it wasn’t bad, because Kang Brian loved the rain. 

Life’s hard, that’s a fact, and Brian knowns better than anyone. Being a singer isn’t easy, not only because being actually successful is pretty hard, but because everytime you’re up there you know that could be your last chance, your last time. That’s why Jae Park never loses a chance. That’s why even if is raining like the world is coming to an end, Jae is singing on stage, like his life is on the table once more, like the rain was something planned. Everyone is impressed, because Jae Park has a very small fandom, but he somehow made it to a bigger stage. His voice is like melting honey on the trees, and he sounds so broken, so ready to burst into tears, Brian is actually thinking about jumping onto the scenario and hug him, whispering ‘everything is gonna be okay, babe’. 

He sometimes has this feeling inside, but he doesn’t know why. It’s something about Jae’s way of singing. Reminds him about life’s he never lived, about moments that never happened, about a boy under the rain crying for him, asking him to stay. It’s like a dream that comes vivid when he goes to one of his concerts.

Brian’s not a fan of Jae Park; actually, the fan is his sister, Young Hee. She came one day to his room, looking pretty excited while Brian was just recovering from the incident that happened months ago. The emptiness on his brain slowly driving him crazy, pushing him to a self-proclaimed loneliness. She just stared at him, with sparky sweet eyes, and told him about an unknown singer that just made his debut at the same time he woke up on the hospital. “Do you believe in destiny?”, the question assaulted him, sparking too on those little fawn eyes, not with the voice of his sister, but with the voice of a stranger. 

“Stay with me, Bri”

The rain is getting heavy while the song is in crescendo. People didn’t notice. At first Brian didn’t either, because everyone was so captivated by that small (yet so tall) boy on stage that rain wasn’t rain, only an added effect on Jae’s performance. 

“Stay with me”, but he didn’t, he couldn’t.

Finally, the performance ended with a soft voice pronouncing slowly the last few letters. The crowd burst into applauses, some fans screaming Jae’s name, some others taking photos, majority of them searching for a place to hide from the heavy storm is right now onto their heads. But Brian stays, looking at the stage. And for a very small moment, he’s sure Jae looked at him with eyes as heavy as the rain.

Young Hee came moments after, grabbing him by the arm and taking him to a safer place, she’s still scared even though months passed without Brian feeling worst. Nobody could understand that he wasn’t suffering anything physical. No, it was mental, it was an emotional stone on his mind blocking all his memories, all the things that made him happy once. Worst thing about trauma-related amnesia is that you don’t know you have it until one day you realize what’s missing. Until the strings begin to stretch inside and suddenly, you’re somewhere else, lost, looking someone, looking for something, hearing a voice asking you to stay.

Worst thing was realizing everyone was lying to him, everyone was hiding the truth. Brian became paranoid, spent nights awake, trying to remember. His family, his friends, everyone noticed the lack of trust, the passive-aggressive comments. Bright fluffy Brian became bad tempered angry Brian, and the situation was so untenable he had to get away.

He came back, though. And his sister took him to Jae’s concert, and now he’s there again with Young Hee asking if there’s something wrong.

“I… Just remembered something”, He said, staring at the empty stage. “I need to see him”.

“That’s not a good idea, Young Hyun. I mean, he’s an idol, he probably has all this crazy security around him and…”

She was talking to a void. 

Turns out there wasn’t any security around the boy. He was smoking on an alley, and tried (not so hard) to hide the cig when Brian came to him. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not telling anyone”

“Boy, you better not” Jae answered, taking the cigarette into his lips. “May I help you, sir?” Brian felt stupid at that moment. The singer didn’t even looked at him, not even raised his eyes once. 

“I just… liked your performance. Very much.” He mumbled, lighting up cigarette for himself. He promised Young Hee to quit, but never mentioned when. “Man, this rain is crazy”

“Okay, spit it out, honey. I don’t have very much time until my gorilla comes here and I like your pretty face enough to not wanna see it looking like a Picasso paint” He said, stretching his arms.

“Do I know you?” Brian asked, taking bravery from, literally, nowhere.

“Wow. I was expecting something more like ‘do you want some sexy time’” Jae said, staring -finally- at him. “Hm… No, sorry, never saw you before this. I would’ve remembered that face of yours, believe me.”

“You look like someone I’ve met before. I know that.”

“And I’m telling you I’ve never met a foxy smile dude before. I mean, yes, I did. My ex had an amazing one. But you’re not him because if you were him we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.” Jae explained, dropping the cig to the ground. “Gotta go”

“Wait. Didn’t you wanted a sexy time?” Brian asked, out of nowhere. Jae smiled then.

“Sure, I’ll call you” He said, getting into the concert hall again.

Brian didn’t thought about it until some weeks after. He never gave his number to Jae.

Jae did called him a few days after the concert. It was late and Brian was about to sleep when his phone started to vibrate at the rhythm of Blood Sweat and Tears by BTS. 

“Hm… Yes?”

“I hope you like dark small smoky places as much as I do because if you don’t then I’m absolutely not having a sexy time with ya’” Jae sounds different this time, relaxed, funny, completely drunk, and Brian can’t avoid to smile at the thought of the feline boy being an absolute mess in his arms.

“I may started liking them like, right now”

“smooth” Jae answered, and Brian just knew the other was smiling at his phone. “Come here, foxy boy. I wanna see how much smoothy you can get tonight”

The pub was full of a dense haze that made difficult to watch anything. People were moving on the dance floor at the rhythm of some catchy pop summer song Brian didn’t knew. As he came closer to the meeting point, he realizing moving in that place was like floating over an abysm of vodka and peach juice. Neon lights painted the walls of the place, and the dancers make up was neon too. The fog and the darkness sharpened his other senses, making him feel more, feel complete yet empty at the same time.

Jae was already there, sitting on an old frayed sofa with ripped jeans and a “f the world” T-shirt. His blonde hair was slightly painted by the neon in the room, his rounded glasses long forgotten in the table with their drinks. He wasn’t alone, but Brian never had problems with meeting new people; his problem was with the people he already met.

“Oh, god. You look way better than I remembered” Jae screams, his drunk voice making the whole scene even more funny. “C’me here. Dudes, this is… sorry, what was your name? I kinda suck at this things”

“Just call me Brian” He said, taking a seat next to Jae. The rest of the boys introduced themselves right after and at the moment they were talking like they were friends since forever. 

Brian had missed this. Being comfortable enough to talk, to laugh, no intrusive thoughts, just he, Jae, some guys and some more drinks. Nothing more to worry that how cute Jae looks when he laughs, when he smiles, when he tries to seduce Brian on that frayed sofa. Everyone leaving them alone when things got heated, when Jae stops being cute and starts being dangerous, when their lips are so close and his breathings so heavy that Brian has to force himself to remember they’re on a public space and Jae is relatively famous. And even then, is hard. He’s fully attracted to the other one, he’s fully aware of his sharp jaw, his rounded lips, his long legs. And his whole body is shaking at that moment.

“Don’t you wanna dance?” Jae asked, letting his hand fall on Brian knee.

The thing with Jae was that every single movement seemed previously calculated. Kind of robotic, unnatural, and at the same time improvised, natural. And Brian was fully aware that Jae wasn’t as drunk as he was pretending to be.

“Okay, I’ll dance with you. But first you’re gonna play a game with me”

“Uh… kinky, I like that” Jae said, smiling softly.

“It’s called the ‘tell me what exactly and, more important, really, am I doing here”. The silence fell between the two guys as Jae felt himself suddenly discovered. He lowed his eyes, unable to talk, unable to think a proper excuse for his behavior. “I did knew you, right?”

“I… Yes.” He said. “We…”

“Why.”

“What?”

“I just wanna know why you lied to me, why everyone lied to me”.

“Because they told us it was the best for you. I don’t know, Bri… I did wanted to talk to you first, but I just couldn’t”

“Why?”

“Because it hurts. It hurts so much…”

Jae wasn’t drunk anymore, he was just sad, he was trying to scape from that place, trying to avoid Brian eyes once again. That’s why he didn’t stared the first time. Because of the pain.

They went out of the pub, because Jae couldn’t stand the loud music anymore and the mood was broken, anyway. So they sat there, on another dark alley, and Jae rolled a joint so quickly Brian didn’t had time to protest; not like he’s going to, either.

“Listen” Brian started, waiting until Jae licked and rolled the paper and lighted the joint. “I don’t wanna know, I really… I don’t need. Is just… this void inside my head is messing with me, you know. Is driving me crazy, because is like having an eternal feeling of being missing something very important. And just knowing y’all are hiding everything from me makes it even worst”.

“We had to, tho” Jae said, inhaling the smoke and expulsing slowly, making O forms in the thin air. “At first we tried to… you know. Forcing those memories to you. But it ended even worst. We understood your brain wasn’t just ready to affront all the info”

“So… You and me…”

“That’s… complicated.”

“I have time”

“We were… something. But I never had clear what, to be honest. We met in this same place like… three, four years ago? You looked stunning in that silver brilliant hair. I was so, so drunk, oh my god”

“You came straight to me and asked if I believed in destiny”

“Yeah. You got me a drink and went back with your friends. It wasn’t until the end that the silver foxy smile dude came back and asked me to dance. And I rejected because I’m a prideful son of a bitch”

“And…”

“And then we met in this alley. I was smoking too. You started singing ‘Won’t go home without you’, the Maroon 5 one. And I couldn’t ignore you. Because, yeah, your voice was beautiful and I was high and drunk and you were too, and I liked you very much, like a teenage crush kinda like. I took you home. And you kissed me. You kissed me until we both felt better. And we fell asleep on each other arms.”

“That doesn’t sound very much like me”

“Didn’t like me either. But that was what happened.”

“And then?”

“Then… Well. You and me were like a roller coaster. There were amazing times, amazing memories. You made me the happiest person in this world, Brian.”

“That’s not how a roller coaster works”

“The thing about roller coasters is that at first is funny, you know. Exciting. Even when we argued the adrenaline kept us working. But at some point, you get tired, dizzy, without voice from screaming so loud… And the falls doesn’t feels like falls anymore, but neither the ups. You and me needed so bad the adrenaline that realized we were only doing it because of the emotion. Our thing was empty. Suddenly, the highs were way shorter than the downs. Suddenly all we did was argue. And we started missing something that never existed between us”

“So we broke up”

“You can’t broke intangible things, Bri. I think we just… stopped. Seeing each other, texting, calling… We met other persons, we fucked other persons, we loved other persons… and at those times when we needed a ride we just dialed each other numbers”

“Why didn’t you called again?”

“Because I was tired of falling. You talked about the pain of something missing, but you can’t know how hard is the pain of being the one who’s missing.” Jae explained, with tears in his small eyes. Brian stared at the wall in front of them, not knowing what to say to make things better. Not knowing if there was anything he could say to make things better. “You called me. While you were at the hospital. Suddenly you woke up and took your phone. And called me. I was not in your contact list anymore, but somehow you remembered my number”

“I don’t…”

“Doctors said it was something like confusion after the trauma. You were in a hysteria state, and there were two options. Amnesia or Permanent sequels. I mean, you’re going to have sequels, but I guess they’re not as bad as the others.” He said, smoking again and tasting the flavor of the weed before passing the joint to Brian. “Until one day you woke up and you didn’t remember me. Us. Nor our thing, our common friends…”

“What happened to me?” He finally asks. And something tells him Jae is not going to answer that question. 

Brian knows he shouldn’t know, but he never was that curious about his accident before. Now that he found the missing piece of the puzzle is time to order every one of them again and make them fit. And his head hurts, his chest feels heavy. He’s starting to get high so he knows the feeling would be over in a short spawn of time. Only the heaviness, because there’s no way the emptiness leaves his body.

“I… I can’t tell you, Brian. Not only because that would probably fuck up your mind more, but because that would fuck up mine too. Loosing you was like loosing the fucking seatbelts on the roller coaster, you know. I fell. I… I carried this fucking feeling for months. I thought you were fucking dead, Brian. I thought I lost you, and then I felt like shit. Like I didn’t did enough to save you, to save us.” Jae stopped and let his head softly hit the wall behind them, looking at the reddish sky. Is probably going to rain again. “I wanted to go after you, but no one knew about us. No one knew anything. And I didn’t wanted to drag anyone else to our own hell”.

There was something in the way Jae talked about them that made Brian come to the conclusion that they were much more than an empty emotional roller coaster. He looked at the broken guy sat just next to him, but at the same time so far away. Pretending he was drunk to let himself be wanted by the person he loves. Brian never was so fully aware about how his own sickness affected the people next to him. The people he forgot. The missing pieces of his puzzle.

“I can’t change that. I can’t erase what happened. And I’m sorry, Jae. I’m sorry I came to you again… I didn’t knew…”

“It’s funny, Bri. Because when I saw you on that alley I thought… I don’t know. That you remembered me, that you were there because of me. But in the spawn of a night I realized that destiny just fucked it up once again” Jae laughs, but is not funny, is cold, and hurts. Deep inside, just hurts so much. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Bri. I’m the one who will always be sorry between us.”

That’s the final dot on the conversation. None of them talks again. Brian realizes, then. There’s nothing he can say that can fix things again. Is just a broken roller coaster. A broken feeling. A broken memory.

That was the night Brian started running. No one asked further questions. He just started running. His feet hitting the wet ground at dawn, heavy breathing letting the steam mix with the morning mist. 

Young Hee was the only one actually concerned about him. His parents never worried about him the way they should’ve worried, and it didn’t took long to Young Hyun to realize that. Because having functional relationship didn’t seemed to be his thing.

“You’re acting weird again” She says, frowning. 

“Yeah, acting weird is one of my kinks”

“No, I’m not buying the sarcasm bullshit again, Kang. Just sat in the bed, be an adult and affront it”. Said Young Hee, almost screaming. That surprised Brian, because Young Hee never used to raise her voice. 

“I met a dude who I used to fuck before the accident. That’s it. I was just trying to get things straight with myself”

“Nothing is fucking straight with you.” Young Hee said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, you used to fuck a lot of dudes. And when I say a lot I mean we didn’t had enough chairs for your fucking funeral amount of dudes”

“I fucked him for almost four years. Like kinda a constant thing, but never serious. The thing is… he talks about it like we really didn’t had anything. But I don’t feel like that”

Young Hee remained in silent for a while, Brian finally sat on the bed and looked around himself. His room was like his actual life, white, impersonal, with a few furniture and even less personal stuff. It was more like an Ikea catalogue than the room of a boy who spent his life between those walls.

“I’m not telling you this.” Young Hee finally said, bitting his lower lip. “That dude… I think he lied to you”. Brian stared at his sister. Why would Jae lie to him? “You said you’ve fucked him for almost four years… That’s more or less when you came out to mum and dad. You had a boyfriend then. Never told us anything about him, just that he… you know. Existed. Somewhere. And that you loved him.”

“Wait… What?”

“I managed then to get more info. This dude was already in a relationship. A very, very bad one. And you met him on a pub one night, and spent the night at his place. You didn’t knew about the other guy until months ago, and never made it official because… Well. You know why”.

Something woke up inside of him, a kind of need he didn’t know until that moment a person could have. It was something like being melancholic. Like being drunk on a unknown feeling. And sadness, there was a sudden sadness.

“I think I fucked up, Hee. Like, a lot”

“So… Do you remember him?”

“No. Not exactly. I can’t remember things, I just feel it. Like, when I saw him I knew it was him, you know. I just knew the same I know now.”

“We all lied to you, Brian. Because we thought it was the best. Sometimes you can’t avoid lying to the people you care about. Even if that’s a mistake, even if the end doesn’t justify the means.” Young Hee said, sitting by his side. “You told me that just before all happened. Whatever it means, I’ve learnt that lesson because of you. We thought we were going to lose you whatever we did, so we ended doing what we thought it was the best. And it was egoistic, now I can tell. But I can’t stand you getting away and away from us. Your family, your friends, the people you love. You’ve been carrying those nasty feelings long enough. Even before you lost your memories.”

“I don’t think I… will ever heal, Hee.”

“Another thing I’ve learnt is that heeling is a process. It’s like a roller coaster at first. With ups and downs, you know. Some days seems like you’re fine, others seems like you never will be fine. At some point, the roller coaster becomes a mountain. Normal people walks a way during his life, and it may be stones on that way, but you learn to pass them. Others have mountains on their way” She explained, looking at Brian. “And you also have to go up to keep walking. A lot of people surrender on their way, and is not something you can’t ever judge. But you have the possibility of climbing the mountain, of going up. If you really wanna heal you can do it, but there’s a long climb in front of you.”

“That was very beautiful, Minnie.”

“Jae Park taught me that.” She said, almost embarrassed. “I mean, it might sound cliché, but his songs… You can really feel he’s one of a kind”

“I guess he went through a lot of shit”

“He never talks about his past. But we all guessed a few things about him at the end.”

“I’m glad someone taught you this, Young Hee. I’m very glad that someone was just there, where I couldn’t be.” He said, staring at his sister. Brian felt so proud at that moment he couldn’t avoid the sparks on his eyes.

“You know, you taught me a lot too. When you came out to our parents I thought you were crazy. I mean, no one worth being neglected by your own family. I really thought you did this for this special boy. But one day I realized it wasn’t because of the person you loved at that time. You did that for you, because you wanted to be yourself.”

“I think one just has to do what he has to do to be happy and safe, Young Hee. And I’m sorry if I’ve sucked being your big bro. But I promise you right now, and right here. I’ll climb that mountain. For you and for me.”

The hugged after that. Young Hee left the room and Brian smiled to the emptiness. For the first time in a lot of time, the heaviness wasn’t that strong. He closed his eyes, leaned onto the bed. He thought about Jae’s smile that night. And then, he was there again, lost in the void.

“Stay with me, Brian.”

“You don’t want me here, don’t you?”

“Please, don’t go. At least give me one chance.” The voice pleads. But he can’t see his face.

“I don’t want to hear it again. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of you coming back to him again and again. I’m tired of being the one licking your wounds. Just find another dog and leave me alone”

Silence. Someone’s crying. There’s police sirens lighting on a dizzy blurry image. Brian can’t hear a thing, only mumbles.

And then, there’s white.

“I just wanna know if he’s gonna be okay”

“Haven’t you hurt him enough already?” That’s… His mum?

Black. Again. He wokes up by night, and it seems to be late, because the streets are empty and a soft rain is starting to fall. Brian leaves the bed and looks at the clock. Three AM. That nightmare stills vivid on his mind. He puts his clothes, shoes, grabs his phone and his watch and starts running by the city. It’s crazy, but he knows is the only way for that feeling to disappear once again. Running. It starts like a normal walk, but at some point it becomes a race almost like his life depends on it. Brian never knew where he was running to. Or why. Or who. He only knew he had to run.

But this time he ended the race at the right place. At least, one that sounded familiar to him. He grabs his phone and press the number. A soft sleepy voice drops of the speaker, like honey melting in the trees.

“Bri? It better be important”

“I’m home”

“What?”

Lights pop up on an apartment. Brian smiles. Jae looks trough the window. He hangs up just to ran to the street. When he arrives, they look at each other for a moment before Jae runs into his arms. He forgot. How could he forgot how good felt to hold Jae against him like this?

“It fucking took you so long, bastard” Jae said, laughing and crying at the same time. 

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. For what I told you that night. I… I didn’t mean it, Jae. I love you. I loved you then, I didn’t know…”

“It’s okay, Bri. It doesn’t matter now.”

“No, it does. You need to tell me everything. I need to know.”

Jae’s place is just like Brian imagined before, messy but warm. Everything there was like order inside a small chaos. Photos, books, CD’s, even his bass was there, hanging on the wall. Jae sat on a frayed sofa and left his tablet on the small table. Brian took that as a signal and sat by his side, facing him. The lights were as warm as the rest of the old furniture, taken of, literally, everywhere. His beach house, Jae’s grandma place, some of them bought on Ikea… The feeling were right there. Everything was just as he remembered. As it supposed to be.

“How much do you know” Jae wondered, putting his glasses on.

“I remember you and I fighting… and then some days at the hospital… It didn’t took me long to fit the pieces”

“Well… then get comfortable, because this is the hell of a ride”

Jae and him met on the pub one summer night on a party. Jae hadn’t debuted yet, it was just kind of a predebut shit. The first part was just as Jae told, but with the missing part. He was already dating someone. Mark. Mark was a little son of a bitch that made Jae’s life a living hell. Jae told Brian they would never be something serious, because he loved Mark. Brian never knew, because Jae was always careful of hiding it. The wounds, the pain, the damage, physical and emotional. All the shit with Mark was hiding behind excuses, arguments and Jae’s own clumsiness. (He wasn’t clumsy at all).

Everything was… fine. In his own twisted way, but it was fine after all. Until Brian wanted some more. Jae, pressured by his love, broke up with Mark. Mark threatened him with ending his career before it started. Jae left Brian and came back with him. All that during almost four years.

And then, one night, Brian got tired. It was normal, because he didn’t knew (he couldn’t even imagine the pain Jae was suffering) so he went to his and Mark place to end everything for good. Jae begged him to go. Mark came back when Jae was trying to stop Brian for leaving. Brian left the house, but just before he could saw it, for the first and last time, the panic in Jae’s eyes. It was absolutely fear, and a cry for help. So he stayed on the stairs until the fight started. He heard. He couldn’t avoid to interrupt. Mark was crazy, and he almost kill both Jae and Brian before some neighbor called the police. When Brian woke up at the hospital he was like crazy, and his family told him Jae was dead. His brain couldn’t deal with the guilt and the pain, so one day he woke up without knowing anything. 

“That fucking sounds like a dramatic version of The Notebook” Brian said. But he knew Jae wasn’t lying. He just knew.

“As if The Notebook wasn’t dramatic enough” Jae smiled softly.

“How would you call this story?”

“Hm… Brian is an asshole. Probably.”

“I am offended right now. I was trying to be romantic here, so help me a little”

“Don’t ‘I was trying to be romantic’ to me. I’m the one who woke up at three am just because certain someone forgot where he used to live.”

Brian couldn’t avoid getting closer to Jae, and kiss him very softly. Kissing Jae felt like riding a bike. 

Riding a bike downhill, without brakes, and the bike was actually on fire.

They kissed, one, two, thousands of times before Brian could separate himself from Jae’s body again to stare at him like he was staring at the universe. Jae was his universe, beautiful, immense, fascinating. And nothing would ever erase that feeling.

That night was the first in a lot of nights Brian Kang was able to keep a promise. He started to climb the mountain. And he wasn’t alone anymore.

He wasn’t empty anymore.


End file.
